[quote=“sulavaca”][quote=“Ducked”][quote=“cfimages”]Getting rid of booths and making it all electronic is the way to go. Something like the way they do it in Melbourne.
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Wrong. Getting rid of booths and making it all FREE (as in F-ing “FREEWAY”) is the way to go. Something like the way they do it in the UK. Not holding my breath though.[/quote]
If they were to drop road tax altogether however and only charge road users for using the road, then I’m all for that. Pay for what you use and no more. Seems pretty fair to me.[/quote]
Yes, that’s defendable up to a point. It is also unlikely. This will almost certainly be implemented as an extra charge.
Its also completely unecessary from your perspective, since the same effect can be achieved without any infrastructure or surveillance requirement, simply by a tax levy on fuel sales, which would have additional benefits.
If its implemented selectively, as in for motorways only, it’ll have negative environmental effects since cheapskates like me will avoid using them unless the charges are fairly low.
[quote=“Ducked”]the same effect can be achieved without any infrastructure or surveillance requirement, simply by a tax levy on fuel sales, which would have additional benefits.
If its implemented selectively, as in for motorways only, it’ll have negative environmental effects since cheapskates like me will avoid using them unless the charges are fairly low.[/quote]
Charging a tax on fuel is fine if the fuel is to be used for road travelling. I have little issue with that, only that toll payments are entirely for road use, as so would ultimately be the most reasonable option in my opinion.
As far as toll collection on minor roads; There must also be methods for collection there too, especially given that the technology seems to be mature enough that it can be installed fairly simply without having to slow down traffic. They already do such a good job slapping speed cameras in every nook and cranny.
[quote=“sulavaca”][quote=“Ducked”]the same effect can be achieved without any infrastructure or surveillance requirement, simply by a tax levy on fuel sales, which would have additional benefits.
[/quote]
Charging a tax on fuel is fine if the fuel is to be used for road travelling. I have little issue with that, only that toll payments are entirely for road use, as so would ultimately be the most reasonable option in my opinion.
[/quote]
Farmers and commercial fishermen already get fuel tax exemption in many jurisdictions, including Taiwan. What’s left?
…um, Motor racing? Recreational power-boating? Recreational off-roading?..insignificant, and sod them anyway, they can afford to subsidise the road network a bit, assuming they can’t get tax exempt fuel. They are almost certain to be using the road network to and from doing their thing.
Camping stoves? Zippo Lighters? Molotov cocktails? (OK, it would admittedly be unfair if revolutionaries were forced to disproportionately subsidise the road network).
Barbeque lighting/eyebrow removal?
In other words, phooey Mr S! That’s a red herring.
Fuel use is going to be directly proportional to road use to as near as makes no practical difference, so there is no reason for direct road charging, other than as a figleaf for surveillance/data collection, or as jobs-for-the-boys.
Well aside from all the other uses for diesel and petrol, to which you have already added a few examples yourself, there is also the point that roads need not be there for only petrol or diesel powered vehicles. This is changing, even as we speak. Are there going to be taxes on electricity, hydrogen and food, which are also forms of power used for road transportation?
My point is that even though pump tax may work to a certain extent as far as road tax, it’s efficiency as a taxation method changes over time.
I see the government is introducing electronic toll stations. I’m sure people aren’t going to stop this from happening, and indeed it is already in effect. So, does this mean that I’m paying tax twice, once on fuel and once on the road, on some roads, and then only once on other roads?
Why not just pay tax once, when I use a particular stretch of road? Or not at all in the case that I don’t use a road?
If we are to be accepting of this digital form of road tax, then why not go with it, and simply only be taxed for using the road? It’s a direct tax, not an indirect tax, and its a tax payment which is demanded only when you use the road.
Edit: That was a poor analogy.
Buying a juicer and having to pay for orange juice isn’t fair, just the same as buying a collector car, and then paying a “fuel charge”.
Paying for fuel for a generator or lawn mower, and then having to pay for road construction is also rather unfair.
The difference is that taxation means that its the government’s job to provide and maintain all the road network. Governments don’t work as efficiently as the private sector in this case, as has also been shown in the past. Government’s often do a very good job at encouraging inflation in costs over time, due to encouragement of budget raising.
I prefer to leave my transportation network to the private sector, as long as they have to adhere to basic rule of law.
[quote=“sulavaca”]Well aside from all the other uses for diesel and petrol, to which you have already added a few examples yourself, there is also the point that roads need not be there for only petrol or diesel powered vehicles. This is changing, even as we speak. Are there going to be taxes on electricity, hydrogen and food, which are also forms of power used for road transportation?
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De facto tax exemption for those can be considered as encouraging new/clean technologies. When they get to be a significant slice of the action (which they are not, currently, and won’t be for some time in the future) they could be taxed
CLEARLY I wasn’t arguing that, simply because road-funding via fuel tax made more sense, that it was THEREFORE going to happen. Cmon, Mr S, this is (Taiwan) government policy we are talking about here!
BUT of course, people can stop anything happening if they want to enough. Thats what protests, blockades, letters to the editor/your local Gman, amd Molotov cocktails are for.
Oh, and elections, of course.
Dunno, this is probably an area where one’s left/right political bias starts to show. Trying to keep it technical, I think transport networks operate as an integrated whole. This doesn’t lend itself well to the competitive model, as I think various Thatcherian experiments in our home country have tended to show.
The gubmint is free to contract-out the construction and/or maintenance of sections of highway, and of course they do under existing taxation funded arrangements.
Individual revenue-raising enterprises setting their own rates on different highways would make for some complex journey planning.
Are you going to promote/allow the deliberate construction of competing roads to a destination? If yes you’ve got a lot of environmental damage and probable excess capacity (chaos in shorthand). If no you’ve got local manopoly power.
There is another issue in this type of arrangement, as the majority of hydrogen produced at this time comes from burning fossil fuels, around 90% of it actually. As with many indirect taxation attempts, this could in fact have a unintended affect of causing higher fuel consumption than intended and mean fewer funds go into road building and construction than intended. I admit we aren’t there yet, but hydrogen power and electric power are being marketed as a means to cleaner, less fuel intensive technologies, but which may not be the case.
In the meantime these could result in fewer taxes for roads, and rising costs to the direct fuel burners. This of course results in more hybrid vehicles, which are more efficient, but then if everyone were to consume less fuel through hybrid use, this might result another outcome. Maybe, as within the U.S. more economical cars result in greater distances travelled, which results in greater fuel demand, and more stress on road systems. This means more roads must be built to service the more efficient vehicle, but it means that fewer taxes per mile are gained. The resulting losses in revenues per mile might be gained from raising taxes on fuel if fuel is the primary tax revenue in this scenario. This results in fuel prices rising, which results in the rise in costs of goods and travel. Some might argue that this is a good control mechanism. I would argue however that travel is a necessity for business growth and further economic development. I don’t think the economy and people’s living standards necessarily improve through restriction of travel through taxation. If taxes are to be gained from only fuel sales, then this will affect the types of fuel being sold, or the types of vehicles being produced. I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that cleaner fuels such as hydrogen, or electricity are actually clean. I think this depends on quite a number of factors such as type of production method, delivery methods, storage methods, usage etc.
[quote]people can stop anything happening if they want to enough. Thats what protests, blockades, letters to the editor/your local Gman, amd Molotov cocktails are for.
Oh, and elections, of course. [/quote]
:roflmao: That’s also my fear, is that people can’t stop the government from taxing them unfairly, as they don’t even understand how the government’s taxation system works. It’s too complicated. Taxes are charged and allocated all indirectly.
In the case of fuel taxation for road and bridge building/maintenance, those with more fuel efficient vehicles are going to end up paying an un-apportioned, higher rate of tax.
Those with black hydrogen vehicles and dirty electric vehicles are going to get off the hook entirely, and perhaps even supported by government handouts, charged to the taxpayer who doesn’t necessarily even use a vehicle.
This is the way which governments work. This wasn’t the way the U.S. was built however, and the way it became a hugely successful and economic super power. It was the way it started to fail though.
It need not. Post offices world wide have agreements on postage rates. Private rail networks manage quite well. I don’t pay a different rate per individual web page I view.
I can only begin to think of quite a number of existing models which offer themselves as viable payment methods, and which don’t require excessive planning in order to use.
I don’t think it has to be as simple as that.
For example, in the past or present, companies or local councils would propose a new road to a community, or a community to a council or company. Let’s say the U.S. during its founding years. The local community would vote either in favor or not in favor of such a plan. The plan might go ahead. The community might choose to pay a contribution towards the road, or it may not. The community would have the power to lease the stretch of road to a particular company. The land, if private, might be sold to a company for development. Competing companies would have to bid against each other for a stretch of land, which would be favorable to the community or land owner.
In the case of public land, then the land can likely only be leased from a council and the company running and maintaining the stretch would have to make good on its efforts, as the lease would run its course and new businesses would be able to make further bids on the maintenance or re-development on the stretch.
All that is happening here, which is different to the system now is that big government is not part of the system, and has no power to offer grants to companies using community ‘A’'s money to build projects in community ‘B’. Big government likes to be the middle man. It gives them power over councils, and takes people’s hard earned money to give it to other people.
Personally I prefer to give my money to the man who I’m doing business with, or even better, to his boss. I usually find that I get a better deal, the higher up the chain I go. Usually because I don’t have to pay a lot of paper pushers in the middle.
I don’t think any private business is going to be dumb enough to just build a road for the sake of building a road, which isn’t going to make revenue. And even if they wanted to, the local public would still have a say in planning permission on public land.
That’s an argument for subsidy as economic stimulus, Keynes stylee.
It does not appear to be an argument for or against any particular means of funding the road network, since they will all impose costs.
[quote=“sulavaca”]I don’t think it has to be as simple as that.
For example, in the past or present, …er …yadda yadda …see above.
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I don’t think it has to be as complex as that, especially if you JUST DON"T DO IT.
The private M6 bypass I mention (see link) above is losing money on a large scale. They are reported to be making strenous efforts to influence the planning process to favor more traffic-generating developments. The chairman of the consortium is credibly reported as saying “We need to slow down the M6”
Corruption and poor judgement are by no means government monopolies, and private enterprise is founded on venality.
[quote=“Ducked”]The private M6 bypass I mention (see link) above is losing money on a large scale. They are reported to be making strenous efforts to influence the planning process to favor more traffic-generating developments. The chairman of the consortium is credibly reported as saying “We need to slow down the M6”
Corruption and poor judgement are by no means government monopolies, and private enterprise is founded on venality.[/quote]
That’s then a good example of why tax payers shouldn’t be putting money into government developments. When a private company does it, then its their money to loose and not anyone else’s.
Of course companies lobby the government for change so that they may benefit from tax payer’s money. It’s the job of government however to stay on the straight and narrow. It’s precisely for this reason that government should not have the power to make decisions such as this. Take the power away from government, and put it into the people’s hands.
When big business can pay for polyticians to rise to the hill top, then those polyticians make big moves in order to favor big business. This leads to all sorts of issues, not merely the economic ones, and bailouts, which only favor big business which we are seeing right now.
[quote=“Ducked”][quote=“sulavaca”]
I would argue however that travel is a necessity for business growth and further economic development. I don’t think the economy and people’s living standards necessarily improve through restriction of travel through taxation. .[/quote]
That’s an argument for subsidy as economic stimulus, Keynes stylee.[/quote]
Well, I think I agree on that one to some extent. It is however, generally the desire of the majority of people to have access to travel links such as roads, railways and water ways. This has been shown throughout history to provide greater trade and greater levels of what most people consider “quality life”.
Yes, but costs rise almost always whenever a government takes the reigns, or whenever the government has any influence over the free market, as opposed to when private enterprises manage things. And losses due to government spending are always passed on to the taxpayer.
We already now have government owned banks, road networks, health care, education, social welfare, pensions, insurance and the list goes on. There is no free market any more. We now all suffer from socialist governmental practice, and we know how well that works. If we look at the U.K. and the U.S. alone, then we see all of these have incurred losses. We see the governments running around like headless chickens trying to put the worms back in the can, and they have failed. When a private enterprise fails, it goes bankrupt, and other, more successful or economically savvy firms take the place of those which didn’t work out. When a government, which employs non-professionals makes the same mistakes, then the public have to lay their heads on the chopping block, as it’s their money which gets tipped down the drain, in order to pay the debts to private enterprises which are allowed to lobby the government for breaks and handouts.
Well, its shareholders money. For my sins, I’ve been a shareholder, and I didn’t feel any more in control of “the board” than I did of Thatcher’s government. And the board turned out to be an as big, or, to be fair, an even bigger, bunch of sleazy shits.
“the people” in this case being the board of directors of a private consortium.
I’m a bit unclear what you mean by “decisions such as this.” but in context it should be planning approval.
You’re probably serious, too.
[quote=“sulavaca”]
Yes, but costs rise almost always whenever a government takes the reigns, or whenever the government has any influence over the free market, as opposed to when private enterprises manage things. And losses due to government spending are always passed on to the taxpayer.
We already now have government owned banks, road networks, health care, education, social welfare, pensions, insurance and the list goes on. There is no free market any more. We now all suffer from socialist governmental practice, and we know how well that works. If we look at the U.K. and the U.S. alone, then we see all of these have incurred losses. We see the governments running around like headless chickens trying to put the worms back in the can, and they have failed. When a private enterprise fails, it goes bankrupt, and other, more successful or economically savvy firms take the place of those which didn’t work out. When a government, which employs non-professionals makes the same mistakes, then the public have to lay their heads on the chopping block, as it’s their money which gets tipped down the drain, in order to pay the debts to private enterprises which are allowed to lobby the government for breaks and handouts.[/quote]
I’m having trouble disentangling that lot. Some of it seems to be about the MASSIVELY superior efficiency of private enterprise, some of it arguing against government bailouts when private enterprise FUCKS UP on such a MASSIVE scale (as it has recently) that the global economy is structurally imperilled.
There’s a certain ambivalence, a certain tension, a certain “cake and eat it” quality about that, too.
Subtle, but its there.
Anyway, this is no longer a technical discussion, but has drifted into a left V. right political argument, so its unlikely to be productive or interesting, and I’ll leave it there.
Well at least you have the choice to be a shareholder or not. Taxpayers don’t have much of a choice. It tends to ultimately end with the choice prison or not?
Yes shareholder too should always do their own due diligence.
Yes, private enterprises are FAR more efficient than government, overall. They make mistakes, but then they fall on their own swords. The present system however encourages big business to make cockups because the governments are there to stuff them full of taxpayer’s money when they don’t work out. This is like going to a casino with a blank cheque provided by your best mate. Who can loose? You win, you take the proceeds. You loose. Oh well. Better luck next time, but at least you don’t go home any worse off than when you came.
Cake and eat it? I’m not sure what you are meaning by this? I am simply stating the way that the free market has succeeded over the years until now that it has been inhibited by socialist meddling.
Getting back to toll booths though. They are presently the most efficient way of collecting payment for the infrastructure they are supporting. Fuel tax isn’t as efficient, and general taxation isn’t either. If tolling can be conducted efficiently and anonymously, then I don’t have an issue with it. I will be supportive of it. If one road costs me more to travel than another, then I will weigh my choices. The free market understands that. That’s what makes competitive business. That’s what brings down the cost of T.V.s telephones, computers, cars, materials, bicycles, electric vehicles, education, homes, clothes, and pretty much anything else, as long as it isn’t inhibited by government.
Do I want a cheaper road to travel on? Sure I do. Do I want to pay for its construction? Sure I don’t. Not unless I am interested in buying stocks in a tarmac company perhaps.
I won’t do that though unless they are paying monthly dividends. Why not? Well the government are debasing the currency my stock is priced in, which means that even if my stock goes up in price, my value doesn’t change.
Why are the government debasing the value of my stock? Well that’s because they are building shit with money they don’t have, can’t pay for it with taxpayer money, as that isn’t enough to even pay the interest on their loans. So they are resorting to bond production, and money printing. They are pretending that they can inflate their way out of anything.
Many cultures and governments have tried that in the past, and every single one of them have failed. The moral of the story is, don’t build shit you can’t afford; and then don’t charge everyone for your own mistake.
[quote=“sulavaca”]
Getting back to toll booths though. They are presently the most efficient way of collecting payment for the infrastructure they are supporting. Fuel tax isn’t as efficient, and general taxation isn’t either.[/quote]
OK then.
If we can simply consider the here and now, so we don’t have to speculate on a Judge Dred future of widespread road privatisation, which AFAIK isn’t on the cards for Taiwan, or worry about a Buck Rogers future of widely used alternative fuels, the above statement is simply absurd.
A fuel tax is inevitably going to be more efficient, because it gives effectively 100% coverage of the road usage without requiring the deployement of any gizmos or infrastructure at all.
I really don’t understand how toll roads are a superior way to pay for roads. They must make up something like 1% of the road system with fuel/vehicle tax paying for the other 99%. They are an inconvenience and they are an inefficient way of collecting money since there are significant costs to maintaining the toll booths. This new etag system will reduce those costs but they will still be there.
I think you guys don’t understand how the system works here. The freeways in Taiwan are built using money from a dedicated national freeway fund. They are not built using money from the general tax fund. The tolls collected on freeways go exclusively into the freeway fund for maintenance and expansion of the freeway network. Thus it is a self-financing system that is largely free from political interference.
It’s been said before that the Xueshan tunnel was so costly and controversial that it could never have been completed had the financing come from general taxes. Knowing what we do about Taiwan’s basket-case legislature, I have no problems believing that claim. And BOT projects always end up costing the public more than government financed projects. What Taiwan has is a pretty unique “3rd way” that seems to work (though there are some pretty dubious construction projects going on, like the elevated part of Freeway 1 from Wugu to Zhongli).
I can’t understand how it can be more efficient than a direct charge.
As I’ve mentioned every car which uses fuel, uses fuel at a different rate.
Some cars may manage 5 kilometers per litre of fuel. Other cars may manage 25 kilometers per litre of fuel. This means that the fuel efficient vehicle is paying less towards road maintenance and construction. If all vehicles become more efficient day by day, then the tax revenue drops per kilometer of road. If cheaper fuel results in more travel and more cars on the road as in most cases it invariably does, then this means more wear and tear to the road surface, more necessary construction, and based on fewer funds.
The best the government can do in this case, is raise tax on fuel, and they must guess how much tax that might be.
If we consider the here and now, then we have the government who hands out cash to private bidders, who take their money and run once a project is completed. We don’t always see a good job done, and in many cases we see that the government, as true as the sun rises in the morning, has to go digging holes once every now and again in order to spend what it has left in its budget, just so that their departments are still warranted and don’t need to be reduced in size. We presently see the government charging car owners a “fuel charge”, once every year, for fuel they haven’t even used. They then charge a tax on fuel, which is not proportional to the distance covered by their vehicles and which doesn’t accurately cover the cost of a single vehicle’s impact on the highway network.
Just because fuel tax accounts for a greater bulk payment, it doesn’t make it any more superior to a toll system simply because of popularity.
As I said earlier, as new technology is here to be used, and as it already is incorporated into the highway system, then I don’t see why it can’t be expanded.
That’s interesting to know. So are you saying that all costs concerning freeway construction and maintenance are covered only by toll collection?
Well if they managed to build that expansive tunnel system, without digging in to general taxes and it only costs me what is it? About 40NT to travel the length of it each time, then I’m extremely impressed.
You seem to show a belief that general taxes should cover projects such as this, and that the legislature are basket cases for not doing so? Is this what you think, or am I misinterpreting your words?
BOT projects can incur higher costs due to legality and contract costs, inflation and so forth, but they also have a number of benefits and shouldn’t cost the tax payer any additional taxes whatsoever. Any potential road user has the choice to pay for distance covered. Also BOT projects must conform to their agreements and meet their own deadlines. Their profits can be shared by people who want to invest in them. They also provide systems which are typically returned to the public after lease expiration. They also provide newer technologies and know how.
Tunnel system total cost:NT$18,555,000,000 (US$562,273,000)
And I pay 40NT toll collection which saves me the journey through Keelung area, and all that traffic and dodgy dual carriageway. There’s my 40NT saving right there!
Sula, I think if we rely on the general tax fund to pay for freeways then we will end up with a pretty stagnant system like in the UK. The political will to create more freeways just isn’t there anymore because of dwindling budgets and environmental backlash. A national freeway fund means drivers are paying for their own freeway network, which takes away one huge hurdle to infrastructure development.
According to the Freeways Bureau the freeway fund more than pays for expansion and maintenance, and there’s a 50% surplus that is invested in financial markets.
Actually I am not sure I believe in the usefulness of BOT projects, as the involvement of private enterprise means there must be a hemorrhage of funds to make profits for the investors. Whether the other advantages of BOT more than make up for this hemorrhage depends on how well the project is managed, I guess.
[quote=“monkey”]Sula, I think if we rely on the general tax fund to pay for freeways then we will end up with a pretty stagnant system like in the UK. The political will to create more freeways just isn’t there anymore because of dwindling budgets and environmental backlash. A national freeway fund means drivers are paying for their own freeway network, which takes away one huge hurdle to infrastructure development.
According to the Freeways Bureau the freeway fund more than pays for expansion and maintenance, and there’s a 50% surplus that is invested in financial markets.
Actually I am not sure I believe in the usefulness of BOT projects, as the involvement of private enterprise means there must be a hemorrhage of funds to make profits for the investors. Whether the other advantages of BOT more than make up for this hemorrhage depends on how well the project is managed, I guess.[/quote]
I couldn’t agree more with your views on generalized taxation. It is the least efficient form of revenue.
If the Freeways Bureau is making a surplus, I’d be interested in what markets are they invested in? Who covers their losses? Who gains from their profits? Does a surplus in profits mean that they must spend them away in order to continually justify their expansion and jobs? Does this lead to another form of bloated government? I don’t have the answers to these particular questions, concerning this agency. I do understand enough about the failures of some foreign governments and that these questions are often part of the reason for higher taxes, overcharging, inefficiency and reckless spending.
I’m not sure what you mean by BOT projects, hemorrhaging funds. If a BOT project is paid for by investors, then its losses are, or should be passed on to those investors. There should be no public funds for such private projects, otherwise the public may as well manage things themselves as with most socialist systems.
[quote=“monkey”]I think you guys don’t understand how the system works here. The freeways in Taiwan are built using money from a dedicated national freeway fund. They are not built using money from the general tax fund. The tolls collected on freeways go exclusively into the freeway fund for maintenance and expansion of the freeway network. Thus it is a self-financing system that is largely free from political interference.
It’s been said before that the Xueshan tunnel was so costly and controversial that it could never have been completed had the financing come from general taxes. Knowing what we do about Taiwan’s basket-case legislature, I have no problems believing that claim. And BOT projects always end up costing the public more than government financed projects. What Taiwan has is a pretty unique “3rd way” that seems to work (though there are some pretty dubious construction projects going on, like the elevated part of Freeway 1 from Wugu to Zhongli).[/quote]
these are examples of why tolls make sense. Huge projects that couldn’t be built. Trying to say that tolls are better than fuel tax is just changing the collection method for ordinary projects.
But it’s not just changing the collection method. Direct tolls incur fewer variables, and don’t cause a raise in taxation demand on fuel due to more efficient fuel usage. A road user would simply pay according to how far they travel, not how much or how little fuel they use.
But it’s not just changing the collection method. Direct tolls incur fewer variables, and don’t cause a raise in taxation demand on fuel due to more efficient fuel usage. A road user would simply pay according to how far they travel, not how much or how little fuel they use.[/quote]
Distance travelled probably won’t correlate very well to system demand/imposed cost.
An HGV has a much greater axle weight, takes up a lot more space, and causes much more structural damage per km, than my Skywing, or a motorcycle does.
This is already (crudely) acknowledged in the different toll rate that HGV’s and buses pay, but I’d bet that fuel consumption allows a much closer correlation with system demand.
